It’s an unfortunate downside to human nature that whenever somebody does exceptionally well in his or her career, job or sport doubts concerning the legitimacy of that person’s achievements are never far behind.

A case in point is the controversy surrounding Britain’s Chris Froome, the winner, for the second year in a row, of the gruelling Tour de France, the toughest test in cycling or, as many experts say, in any sport. During the Tour Froome produced some outstanding performances causing some French commentators (bad losers perhaps) to allege that those performances, like those of the disgraced Lance Armstrong, a few years back, were too good to be true.

Why were they too good to be true? What if Froome is simply a superb athlete at the top of his game taking what his skills and efforts deserve? What if this is simply a case of cycling, like the proverbial dog, having been given a bad name through the behaviour of Armstrong?

Common sense dictates that the only way to settle the matter is for Froome and his team to be as transparent as possible (which they apparently have been) and allow the sport’s ruling body to carry out whatever investigations are deemed necessary. Then when the all clear is given,  cock a snook at the doubters and say “I told you so” or preferably something a little stronger. I, for one, would be pleased to assist with the exact wording!

You have to hand it to Wimbledon. Not only is it the competition that the world’s leading tennis players say they want to win above all others but it seems to be very well organised and well run too. It has its own special rules, of course, and no matter how the players may dress in other tournaments around the world, when it comes to Wimbledon they must dress in white.

Yesterday saw an excellent men’s final between two of the greatest players to grace the tournament’s green lawns, the Swiss Roger Federer and Serbian Novak Djokovic, both immaculately turned out of course.

Looking at the crowd on our television screens was to look at a cross-section of the great and the good from sport, the arts and politics. They were all well turned out too. Pity then,  poor old Lewis Hamilton, the Formula 1 champion and current leader of the 2015 competition.

Hamilton received an invitation to watch the final from the splendour of the Royal Box but, according to the BBC “he was turned away for not wearing a jacket, tie and shoes, having arrived in a bright floral shirt and a hat”.

Presumably he was wearing something other than a shirt and a hat but even so, to us mere mortals, it’s quite reassuring to know that, no matter how famous or wealthy you may be, if you don’t follow the rules you don’t get in!

“Playing like a girl” has always been a term of abuse among male footballers but, after the valiant efforts of the England women’s team in the World Cup (where they unluckily lost in the semi-finals to an own goal in the last minute of injury time), they may wish to reconsider.

The England women played with an energy, honesty and joy often missing in the men’s game. There was no spitting, no hair-pulling, no scratching or biting, no diving, no abusing the referee, no trying to get opponents sent off and no faking of injuries.

If that is what it means to play like a girl we can only hope that some of our over paid and under- performing male footballers will have taken note.

In an interview with the BBC earlier this week Boris Becker, tennis star of the 1980s and early 1990s, stated that he would, one day, like to become a British citizen. Becker spends a lot of time in the UK and has had a home in Wimbledon for approximately 30 years so I suppose it would be a logical step.

Becker, a German, has always been very popular in this country, not least because of his incredible skill, determination and winning mentality, attributes that you would certainly not associate with English tennis players! The fact that he won Wimbledon three times (the first as an unknown 17 year old) guaranteed him a special place in English hearts.

As a pundit and commentator for BBC Sport he has shown himself to be dry, witty, intelligent and self-effacing and his personal life has never been anything other than entertaining!

I, for one, would fast track any application for citizenship not least because he has a young son who may well turn out to have his father’s tennis skills! How else are we going to find an English champion of Wimbledon?

Welcome to the fold Boris!

Two sides of football were revealed over the last few days.

The bad side, I’m afraid, was no surprise and the release, over the weekend, of the findings of the US-led investigation into the sport’s ruling body, Fifa, merely confirmed what anybody involved or with an interest in football must have known or suspected for years.

Any doubt about Fifa’s depravity and corruption was surely removed when the football-poor but astronomically rich Middle Eastern state of Qatar was awarded the right to host the 2022 world cup.

At the highest echelons the game is as putrid as a festering sore and the revelation that millions of pounds, destined for promoting the game in the world’s poorer areas, was channelled into the private bank accounts of top officials is sickening. We can only hope that those found guilty receive the punishments their repugnant behaviour merits.

The good side was highlighted by a story from Sunderland Football Club. A couple of months ago the club were in serious danger of relegation from the top flight of English football and the board of directors took the gamble of appointing 67 year old Dutchman Dick Advocaat, a man with no experience of the English game. His brief was simple, win as many of the remaining few games as possible and keep the club in the Premier League and we will pay you a nice bonus.

He duly delivered, the club stayed up and the board asked him to stay on and manage full time. Mr Advocaat declined saying his intention was always to retire this year and spend some time with his wife and family. However, after much pleading and petitioning by club officials and fans, he changed his mind and signed a one year contract.

The fans were delighted and some of them started an online appeal to raise money for a large bouquet of flowers to be sent to the new manager’s wife. Within a very short space of time the appeal reached over £2000 (that’s an awful lot of flowers!) so the organisers decided that £150 would be spent on the bouquet for Mrs Advocaat and the rest would go to charity.

There’s still some life in “The Beautiful Game”.

Imagine that your sports team is about to play a series of matches against the best team in the world, a team that completely annihilated your team the last time they met. You want to make sure that you give yourself a fighting chance of victory and so you naturally want to make sure that you utilise your full resources and pick the best players possible.

But what if your star player is a self-centred, egotist who has upset every dressing room he has been a part of and once even sent texts, criticising his own captain, to opposing team members in the middle of a series. When he was subsequently dropped he then wrote a book insulting some of his former team mates and coaches.

He has now regained some sparkling form and following some encouragement from the sport’s incompetent ruling body put himself forward for selection only to be snubbed by the sport’s director because of a “lack of trust”.

Should he be selected, in spite of everything, on the basis that his is a special talent and that he really does give his team a genuine chance of success or, should he be left well alone? That is the situation facing English cricket and former player, Kevin Pietersen.

It’s a difficult one but the bottom line is winning and ultimately, the team’s coach must pick the team that he thinks has the best chance of attaining that objective. That means picking the best available players and if one of those players happens to carry a lot of baggage, is obnoxious, arrogant, hard to handle and disloyal many would say “so what”. As long as the team wins are the supporters that bothered about the personalities of individual members of that team?